Apr. 2, 2011

Algae coats the water at the docks on Burlington's waterfront. / Free Press file photo

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Some of the blue-green algae that regularly appears in parts of Lake Champlain in the summer is not only gross, it can be deadly.

According to the Lake Champlain Committee, the algae killed dogs in the summer of 1998.

The University of Vermont already was monitoring and studying toxic concentrations on many areas of the broad lake, but little monitoring was done near the shore, where people are most likely to congregate and who could suffer from algae exposure, said the committee's Lori Fisher.

So, starting along Missisquoi Bay in 2003, the Lake Champlain Committee organized citizen scientists who take weekly samples along the lakeshore to see if any toxic algae is blooming. The effort since has spread to other areas along the lake, including particularly algae-prone spots such as St. Albans Bay and Alburgh Passage. About 18 citizen volunteers take the samples, Fisher said.

For its work monitoring and helping clean the lake, the Lake Champlain Committee is being nominated for the Citizen Scientist Award as part of the Green Mountain Environmental Leadership Awards through the ECHO Lake Aquarium and Science Center and the Burlington Free Press.

Committee officials said the monitoring helps public-health managers make informed decisions regarding when and where algae blooms require the closure of beaches to the public.

"This monitoring program is adding to our database of information so we understand what some of the triggers are," Fisher said.

She said the close-to-shore monitoring costs up to $20,000 a year, with the largest portion of the cost associated with the actual testing. There is a waiting list of would-be citizen scientists who want to participate in the algae monitoring program, but funding is inadequate to conduct more testing.

Fisher said she worries that funding cuts could reduce the scale of the program.